Every year the ‘Big Bang Fair’ takes place at the NEC Birmingham for young scientists and engineers. This mammoth event is designed to encourage career choices in engineering, technology and science to our future citizens. 

Well over 20,000 children attend every day with their teachers, from schools right across the UK from Cornwall to Scotland. 

Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland (RIBI) was there. Our club member Richard Green was part of the team helping out on the stand. We demonstrated Rotary’s Technology Tournament and talked about the huge range of opportunities and competitions we make available, free of charge, to schools and youth groups. 

These include RYLA (Rotary Young Leaders Awards,) Youth Exchange, the Young Musician, Photographer, Young Chef, Youth Speaks competitions, Rotakids and Interact clubs and many others. 

Richard says ‘it’s been a very tiring, non stop week, but so very worthwhile, with a large number of teachers from right across the land asking for further details.

Wolverhampton Rotary club played host to the District 1210 Final of the Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland 2019 national Young Musican Competition at Wolverhampton Music School on Sunday 3rd. March, with Past District Governor Richard Green as MC.

A superb line up of 6 instrumentalists and 6 vocalists, having won competitions at club level from across District 1210 in Staffordshire, Shropshire and parts of the West Midlands provided a memorable afternoon for a packed audience.

Kizzy Lumley Edwards (vocalist)

Jia Ying Wu piano)

Adjudicators James Thorpe, Simon Whitmore and Peter Aplin had an extermely difficult task to select the winners but eventually chose Kizzy Lumley Edwards (vocalist) from Ellesmere College, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Ellesmere, and Jia Ying Wu (piano) from King Edwards Camp Hill School for girls, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Dudley, to go forward to the Regional Final which will be at Dean Close School, Cheltenham on March 31st.

PDG Richard Green

The purple crocus, which is the emblem for Rotary’s campaign to eliminate polio from the world, are in bloom in Bantock Park in

Wolverhampton. This beautiful display, created in November by the Rotary club of Wolverhampton with the help of local schoolchildren,

serves to raise public awareness of the massive effort made by Rotary clubs throughout the world to defeat this horrible disease.

When the project started in 1985 there were over 1000 new cases every day somewhere in the world. Last year, there were only 33 new cases – 12 in Pakistan and 21 in Afghanistan. As of 19th February 2019 there have been 6 new cases reported this year. Rotarians have donated $1.8 billion to the campaign, to which the Gates Foundation had added $450 million match funding.

PDG Richard Green

Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland Young Musician Competition –
Wolverhampton Area Round

President Elect Richard Horrell makes a special presentation to winning
instrumentalist Rosalind Fearnehough.

Rosalind, age 17, attends St. Peters Collegiate school. She has achieved a
merit in her grade 8  ABRSM exam and plans to pursue a career as a
professional trombonist. As well as playing in the Wolverhampton Youth
Orchestra, she has performed at Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in London.

Another quite exceptional array of young musical talent on display at the Wolverhampton Area Round of the 2019 Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland Young Musician Competition, Sunday, Feb 3rd. The adjudicators Simon Platford and Peter Edwards had a really difficult task to select the winners but they eventually selected Fiona Winning (vocalist) and Rosalind Fearnehough (instrumentalist – trombone) to go forward to the District Final on March 3rd.

Rotarian PDG Richard Green.

President Paul presented cheques to the main charities supported by The Tree of Remembrance at Christmastime. We managed to raise just over £6,000 and each of the charities featured received a cheque for £1,400. Left to right;
Susan Husband MS Therapy Centre, President Paul Lockley, Vicki Wootton Compton Care and Hayley Powell The Haven Wolverhampton. Contributions were also made to Help for Heroes and to Compton Care choir, the balance was retained for Rotary Charities. Thank you to everyone who supported us in this project particularly the people of Wolverhampton and surrounding areas for their generosity.

Come and join members of the five Wolverhampton Rotary Clubs for an evening of pure fun with more than a little French influence on Saturday February 16th. Details on attached poster below-